The presen
t paper describes
the prepara
tion and charac
teriza
tion of hydrophilic hyaluronan nanopar
ticles formed by cross-linking of hyaluronic acid (HA) wi
th 2,2′(e
thylenedioxy)bis(e
thylamine) in
the presence of wa
ter-soluble carbodiimide (CDI) in aqueous media. The par
ticle size of cross-linked nanosys
tems was measured by dynamic ligh
t sca
ttering (DLS) and
transmission elec
tron microscopy (TEM),
transmi
ttance by UV–VIS spec
tropho
tome
try, gel permea
tion chroma
tography (GPC) and rheology
to charac
terize
the physico-chemical proper
ties.
The aqueous nanosystems prepared were stable, transparent or mildly opalescent with values of transmittance above 91 % . It was observed, that a fraction of particles with size less than 20 nm, has been released during the purification by diafiltration. It was established that the hydrodynamic size of cross-linked HA nanoparticles can be controlled by variation of the reaction conditions such as concentration of HA, salt concentration of media, ratio of cross-linker and the final pH of the reaction mixture.